Hello, I was wondering if I was to start a fan site, can I get into trouble if I use the name of the celebrity as domain name? Also, what about the use of celebrity's photos I find on the web? Do I have to ask for permission? Or is it sufficient if I state the source? I see many sites don't even do this. Thanks
Im not sure how it works, aslong as it aint like britneyspears .com and aslong as it dosnt give the celeb a bad image im sure you will be ok. a domain like britneyspearsfansite .com or wotever should be ok
Generally, it is not legal to use the name of a celebrity especially when it is a commercial venture (anything that generates revenue, i.e. adsense, donations for bandwidth, etc) however many celebrities will ignore their rights to recover the name as long as it puts them in a postive light. The biggest problem you can have is posting photographs of the celebrity on the site - which are usually owned by the photographer who often take legal action against infringement. If you are going to take the risk, make sure that you clearly state it is not an official site and that it is not associated in any way with the celebrity.
How come google doesn't get into trouble for their image search? They take pictures from websites, resize them and put them on their site, without having asked for permission to do so.
I dont know if the files are every stored on google servers. I think They are just taken on the fly and resized in your browser the moment you request them